Highlights from an International Research Collaboration

From September 2011 to January 2012, European graduate students Anne-Céline Granjon (France) and Nicky Lustenhouwer (Netherlands) conducted research at Harvard Forest as part of a collaboration between Harvard University and the Erasmus Mundus Master Programme in Evolutionary Biology (www.evobio.eu). Anne-Céline worked with HF ecologist Kristina Stinson, focusing on the response of common ragweed to climate change. She studied the effect of elevated carbon dioxide levels on ragweed biomass allocation and population-level phenology in a large greenhouse experiment. Nicky worked with HF senior ecologist Aaron Ellison, analyzing long-term microclimate data from the Harvard Forest Hemlock Removal Experiment, which was designed to study the response of a forest ecosystem to the loss of eastern hemlock, a foundation species.